The Hawk Must Fly
by Parallel Monsoon
Summary: Fix for 5X19. Castiel is a creature of the air, made for flight above all else, and when Dean takes that from him the grief is crushing. Gabriel opens Dean's eyes to all Castiel has given on his behalf, but it may be too late to make a difference.
1. Chapter 1

Castiel was not the most powerful of angels.

There was no shame in this. He was as his Father made him and he served his garrison honorably and well. He was dedicated in his studies, his skill with traps and wards much admired among the Host. On the battlefield he was possessed of a calm, tactical mind, leading his fellows to victory even when faced with the most desperate of odds.

Still, it surprised no one more than Castiel when he was chosen to raise the righteous man from perdition. It was the first time he questioned an order, but his superiors were patient when they explained that Castiel had a gift none of his kin could match.

Castiel was fast.

His garrison held back the gibbering hordes of smaller demons while Castiel dove into the depths. Damned souls watched as the blue radiance of his Grace streaked past and were comforted, if only for a moment. He found Dean Winchester's soul, tarnished but whole, and was gone before Alastair could register the theft.

Later he would repeat the trick on one of his own, leaving Zachariah muttering impotent curses at the empty space where Dean had stood. Castiel's speed kept him safe from the consequences of such blatant disobedience, allowing him to outpace those who would distinguish themselves by hunting down Heaven's traitor. When all was uncertain and God himself had turned his back, his wings were the only thing on which Castiel could rely.

It was a faith that teetered on the knife's edge of pride. Their feathers were blackened by hell fire, but his wings were strong, his reflexes made for the unpredictable ebb and flow of the celestial winds. Flight was his prayer, a hymn to an absent father that still brought comfort to the singer. It was his calling but also his joy.

It was Dean who took that from him. He placed his hand on the sigil that Castiel himself had invented, never thinking that it would someday be used against him, and sent Castiel's Grace back to Heaven, into the very midst of the Host.

All was panic and confusion. Castiel was flying before he fully materialized, striking out in no particular direction but doing so as fast as his wings could carry him, eager to escape before his brothers gathered themselves.

He was almost at the Gates before Chamuel founds his wits and threw his spear straight and true. Chamuel, angel of tolerance, the only one to understand that to cripple Castiel's wings was to remove his one advantage. The barbed blade struck home in the delicate elbow joint of the left wing, shattering bone and tearing flesh. Castiel fled in a halo of blood and feathers, leaving the fields of paradise behind a second time.

He huddled in a cave on a mountain in Iceland like a fox gone to ground, pouring his energy into his shields and trying to assess the severity of the wound. His wings were part of his true body, the part of him that could be hurt, could be killed, independent of the mortal shell he wore. Even with full access to his Grace there would be no hope of healing the damage.

Yet when the preacher called and Dean's presence thickened the air, Castiel spread his wings and took wearily to the air. By the time he landed at his charge's side Castiel understood that he was crippled. He would fly, but it would ever after be slow and lumbering.

After all he endured this was a loss too cruel to be born. He took out his grief on Dean's body. It would have been easy to kill the human, but in the end he found he could not. Not out of loyalty, but because Dean would not have understood the root of Castiel's anger. His human eyes could not see the white bone jutting through mutilated flesh.

Castiel was wounded, he was tired, and he needed desperately for someone to see it, to see HIM.

At the warehouse in Van Nuys he could feel his brothers waiting, guarding the room containing Adam. He could feel Zachariah as well, already gleeful, his Grace humming with confidence. He turned to Sam to carve the sigil into his flesh, unable to look Dean in the eye after the human's declaration that Castiel was faster than them all.

There was no fear in Castiel when he walked into the warehouse. No fear, no anger, just quiet resignation. Before the Winchesters he had only thought he understood pain. Now he knew it intimately, in all its forms, and he was ready for the solace of death.

None had used the banishing sigil in such a manner before, but Castiel had always been known for his willingness to innovate. He fully expected to be thrown back to Heaven, had found a certain peace in meeting his end in the same realm where he had been born. Disappointment was an inadequate term for the emotion that gripped him when he woke alone on the outskirts of Van Nuys.

Castiel did not waste time wondering what had gone wrong. Once he might have taken it as a sign, but his Father had abandoned them, had no sympathy left for his treasured humans and certainly not for a wayward angel. There was only emptiness in him where devotion had dwelt. Death had been delayed but its pale had settled over him, smoothing over the rough edges of his sorrow.

It took him a few days to track down the Winchesters. Finding Dean still wholly himself was a surprise but Castiel knew this too was temporary, as all things with humans were fated to be. He followed the brothers on their travels, but he did not show himself. He had no faith, not in his orders, not in God, not in Dean, his righteous man, but he still had a duty to do. A duty he himself had chosen, and that was enough to sustain him as the Impala wound its way down dusty roads.

Still, guarding the Winchesters was a tiresome task, undertaken only because there was nothing else left. Castiel limped through the skies above them and where his blood rained down vivid flowers bloomed, hued in tones of crimson and cobalt. They were a reminder that life was unending even when individual lives were not, but Castiel found he did not care what might come after the Earth was laid to ruin.

The lines craved into his chest refused to close. The sigil resisted his Grace and as the miles passed infection set in. Castiel might have succeeded in healing his battered shell through mortal means but it scarcely seemed worthwhile to make the attempt.

One night he tumbled to the ground, gripped by a fever that brought dreams of dancing once more among the stars. There was another form close beside him, but when Castiel turned to look he caught only a glimpse of green eyes and a ready smile. He woke weeping and furious, pounding his fists against the soil until he remembered the walking dead need not feel.

Two days later he relocated the Winchesters. By then the rains had come, cooling the burning heat that weakened his vessel. The brothers sought shelter from the storm in a hotel that pulsed with ancient power.

Castiel hid his presence as best he could behind his shields and took up position on a telephone pole. He had never heard of the old ones gathering en masse before but it did not bode well for the brothers. Many of the pagan gods took their power from human flesh. He thought that underneath the tang of meat and copper Dean would taste of hardwood ashes and Sam of paper gone yellow in the sun.

Perhaps he was not yet free of the fever after all. He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts and drew his sword, preparing himself to make an attempt at freeing the Winchesters. The arrival of a familiar aura made him settle back in surprise.

Gabriel.

Once Castiel had known the archangel well. It had been Gabriel who first recognized his potential and set to teaching Castiel all he knew of the ancient sigils forgotten by most of the Host. Castiel had the ability to create as well as mimic, uncommon among angels. Gabriel had nurtured it, prodding Castiel to twist the lines to suit his needs instead of blindly repeating the wards as written.

But now Gabriel was a stranger to him, Grace overlaid by the persona of the Trickster. The mask had become its maker and Castiel could not trust his brother to protect Sam and Dean.

Yet still he hesitated, wanting so badly to believe that Gabriel might yet surprise him. It would be a relief to pass the burden of the Winchesters to stronger, more capable hands.

Then a new presence approached, a being ancient and terrible, and the time for waiting was over. Castiel threw himself into the rising wind and spiraled upward. Something tore deep within his wounded wing but the jolt of savage pain passed through him without penetrating.

It was Lucifer, Lucifer come at last to claim Samuel, and even as Castiel prepared himself to plummet down he knew this time he would be too late. A sudden flare of purest light blinded him at the height of his climb. Gabriel's shields had fallen, exposing the full glory of his Grace.

Far below the Winchesters fled, out into the night and back onto the road, leaving Gabriel to sacrifice himself in their stead. Perhaps they knew guilt for the escape, but if that were so it was a shallow remorse. They were blind to the ways Castiel had been broken and blind too to Gabriel, seeing only so far as the archangel allowed. They did not see the Gabriel who was kind to lesser angels, who loved his family enough to turn his back on their war.

Castiel remembered when Gabriel took leave of Heaven. He remembered the press of the archangel's lips to his forehead, his admonishment to listen to his instincts before his orders. And Castiel had, trusting in the impulse to aid Dean when he knew he would be punished for the act. A foolish choice, perhaps, but a choice he had made on his own, much like the choice Gabriel was making now.

Castiel pulled his wings in tight, making of himself an arrow of taut fury, and dove.

He ripped through the air, faster twice again then he had ever flown before. It was not feathers and Grace that drove him but love, a love so terrible and choking it could only be human. Angels understood love as a command, not a force that pushed from within, an all consuming fire that fed upon itself.

Love for Gabriel. Love for Dean, for Sam. They had given this glory to Castiel by opening him to the world, emptying him of the dust of his faith and leaving room enough for emotion grown savage. He bled as he flew and he wept, for his lost brother, for the righteous man and the boy with demon blood, and finally, finally, for himself.

Castiel slammed into Gabriel at a speed just under that of light. The tip of Lucifer's sword tore a bloody line across his back as he bore his brother away from the blow that would have killed him. Tangled together they darted across layers of time and space, Lucifer always a step behind no matter how Castiel dodged and doubled back.

It was a race to beat the devil and Castiel did not realize he had won until Gabriel flared his own wings in a desperate attempt to slow their flight. _'Castiel, Castiel, you have to stop, you're ripping yourself apart, please brother, you have to STOP…' _

Castiel cast out with his senses but Lucifer was gone, left so far behind not a trace of his presence remained. Castiel's Grace was a dwindling flame, his wounded wing a scream of agony, but there was joy in his heart. He knew this flight would be his last and was content.

He breeched the last thin barrier around the mortal world above the desert moonscape of Nevada. His vision was blurring, badly enough that he misjudged the entry point, coming in far too low. In the attempt to bleed off speed he lost his grip on Gabriel but he knew the archangel would survive the impact with the ground.

The same could not be said for Castiel. The satisfaction he felt at the possibility was a far cry from the numbness after Van Nuys. Then he had thought he would meet his end in Heaven. Far better to die as he had lived, a creature of the air feathered and swift, the wind in his wings and the sun at his back.

In the end, falling felt much like flying.


	2. Chapter 2

Wildflowers brightened the sepia tones of the desert landscape with a smear of candy-slick blues and reds. Wasps swarmed among the blossoms and crawled sluggish across the parched earth between them, bodies bloated with a surfeit of sugar.

Gabriel followed the curving tract of color to the lump of cooling meat that was his brother's vessels. The collision with the ground had reshaped mortal flesh into something tendriled and abstract, form swallowed by the forces of gravity and friction.

Gabriel landed hard and felt fat wasps burst beneath his heels. The vessel's seams had burst wide, spilling loops of bowel into the dust. He ignored the wreckage for the moment and focused deeper, searching for the blue flame of Castiel's Grace. What he found was a sullen ember, its edges frayed and wisping to smoke. His brother's true self was as battered as his borrowed body. The light dimmed further as Gabriel watched, flickering on the bare verge of extinction.

_Ah, Castiel, you idiot, your wings…_

The right was broken near its base. A bad injury, but one that would heal with time and rest. The left was flayed to muscle and bone, its delicate architecture laid open to the eyes of the vultures that circled above. There was something terribly intimate about the sight; something that made Gabriel spread his own wings wide as if to shield his brother. The drift of shadows only threw the ruin into bas relief, highlighting where tendons had torn free of their moorings.

Healing the vessel was an easy miracle, one Gabriel performed now with careless disregard. A brush of his fingers across the pale forehead and loops of intestines slotted back into place, the belly bulging briefly before skin rippled and sealed. Only the infected sigil in the middle of the chest remained, its lines crusted over with dried pus.

Had only his brother been a bird brought low Gabriel could have done the same for him, erasing even the grievous damage to his wings with a touch. The same God who felt the fall of every sparrow had not given his angelic children the power to heal their own.

Gabriel had no memories of Castiel that were not also those of flight. When he thought of his brother he thought of dark clouds and the Grace that danced within them. A Castiel tied to the earth was a pervasion, an insult to all things feathered and brave in the face of the storm.

Gabriel cradled his brother in his hands, a tender dying glow, and thought of how easy it would be to snuff it out. To close tight his fist, a motion as easy and simple as the brittle breaking of an insect's carapace. A simple thing and all too familiar, the burden of a messenger of both God's wrath and his mercy.

Garbiel saw their faces reflected in Castiel's Grace, the bright and shining warriors he had been forced to sacrifice on the altar of war. Michael and Lucifer were stronger, but it was Gabriel who was given authority over the armies of Heaven. It was by his word that soldiers marched to battle to never return. Onto him was given both dominion over all things powerful and a weight heavy and crushing to keep him from abusing his responsibilities.

Onto Gabriel was given love.

Not the reckless passion of humanity this but love simple, love pure. Michael and the rest viewed the lesser angels as expendable, their lives well-spent if given in service to the greater glory, but in Gabriel their names were known. He grieved for them, his soldiers, and fought at their side so that they might not die alone. What bled in Heaven bled dry, but at least Gabriel could send his brothers on without prolonging their suffering.

Love made him ruthless. In the war against the Fallen Gabriel lead the charge, whispering apologies even as he cast the traitors down to perdition. Love made him cunning. Tasked with cleansing the world of the half-bred Nelphilim, he used rumor and spite to turn the tribes against each other so that his own people might be spared battle.

And love made Gabriel strong. It gave him the courage to leave Heaven behind, an act that the ignorant Winchester boy had labeled cowardice. To stay would have meant being forced to choose a side, and where Gabriel stood so did the rank and file of the Host. Michael, Zachariah, and the rest could press garrisons into service as needed, but they could not sound the call to war.

But now, waiting beside yet another wounded warrior, Gabriel's bravery deserted him. He'd been here before. In a way he'd always been here, had spent his long life in mourning on bended knee. But as familiar as it was, everything was different this time around. It was different because Castiel was different.

From the moment of his creation, Castiel had been a surprise. Gabriel had simply been in the right place at the right time to witness the lesser angel's birth. Castiel's first words had not been a prayer of thanksgiving or a plea for orders. Instead he had turned to Gabriel with a frown and asked the one question that no other angel dared voice.

"Where do we go when we die?"

Gabriel had no answer. Heaven and Hell were promised to mankind, but if anything awaited angels their Father had not deigned to share the knowledge. Gabriel had existed for millennia, but his life was as a mayfly's when compared to the eternity of a mortal soul.

It was just as well then that Castiel did not wait for a response. He lurched into flight, feathers still tacky from the weave of the star that had been his womb, and was gone. It was the first of countless times he would leave Gabriel floundering in his wake.

In his first battle Castiel had again proven himself something altogether new. The rookie garrison had been overwhelmed by a pack of rutterkin, savage little demons with a taste for Grace. Cut off from retreat and outnumbered, things would have ended badly if Castiel hadn't disobeyed the order to fall back. Instead he'd flown high and twisted the ley lines under the battlefield into a simple devil's trap, giving his fellow soldiers the advantage.

He'd been punished, of course, but the ingenious little trick also earned Castiel a place in Anael's garrison, where he'd quickly risen up through the ranks. Uriel had chafed at following a fledgling's orders, but even he found a grudging respect for Castiel's ability to defy the odds.

Eventually Anael brought her lucky find to Gabriel's attention. By then Castiel had had the questions beaten out of him, but there'd been enough of a spark left for Gabriel to bother taking him under his wing to mentor him in the old wards.

He'd regretted those days when news came that Castiel had rebelled against the Host. It was one thing for Castiel to revolt against the archangels' designs, quite another for him to match swords with his own kin. The betrayal made Gabriel harsh when he caught the little angel nosing around the dimension he'd hand-crafted for the Winchester brothers' edification. Only now did he see how much those deaths had cost Castiel, the names of the slain carved bloody and deep in his Grace.

Gabriel loved his brothers, blindly, helplessly. But what he loved he also hated, for that love had been thrust upon him. It was the collar at his throat that strangled him with grief and there was no escape from the ties that bound him. He loved because he could do no less, for Gabriel too was as his Father made him.

But for Castiel, Gabriel had found he could do more. He had felt pride in his protégée's accomplishments with charms and sigils, but there had always been something else, something deeper. It had been born not in battle but in those first moments of Castiel's life, in the quiet question that echoed all of Gabriel's doubts and fears.

The love given to Gabriel had made him ruthless and strong. But the one love he had chosen for himself made him weak, too weak to relieve Castiel's pain. He wrapped the frail Grace in his own, holding his broken brother close in wing and prayer. _'My Castiel, my own, you'll live, and I hope you can forgive me for it.' _

But the same self-chosen love also firmed Gabriel's resolve into something still and cold. In the seconds before Castiel had torn him away, he had looked into Lucifer's eyes and wavered. He had remembered his Morningstar and the sadness they'd all felt when he Fell. But no longer. It had to end.

Not for Sam and Dean. Not for the soldiers left alone. Not even for Castiel.

For Gabriel, so that his days of standing vigil might finally be over.


	3. Chapter 3

The archangel descended on Bobby's junkyard from a tear in the fabric of the sky. Great clouds boiled from the wound, flanks rolling with shades of sulfurous yellow. The rapid strobe of lightning turned the Winchester brothers' attempts to shield each other into a slow motion mockery of dance.

The pagan god ascended from the shuddering earth. The rusted carcasses of cars tumbled from their stacks, falling into chaotic configurations. Wind surged and carried on it was a howl, a night noise of hunting death.

Where the forces met was Gabriel.

Still wearing his weak-chinned, too short vessel, but with power ancient and alien swelling in his eyes. Always for Dean there had been a disconnect between the beings he had been told to fear and the robes of meat with which they hide themselves, but behind Gabriel's eyes lived flood and fire, Sodom and Gomorrah smoldering to ash while the waters rose.

And Dean knew himself then to be a small thing, understood that even Sam faded in significance when in the shadow of an Angel of the Lord. Primal instinct urged him to lift his head in offering of his throat. Instead he showed his teeth in a sneer and wished for his pistol, wanting only what he had always wanted, to go out not with a whimper but one last glorious bang.

He felt his brother move beside him, not lifting his head but bowing it, displaying the soft nape of the neck. Dean forgave Sam that, as he had forgiven his brother many things, and snarled all the longer for the both of them.

"Dude, shit or get off the fucking pot!"

Dean's shout was lost in the maelstrom of electric fury. Gabriel's reply was a blast of discordant noise that dropped the brothers to their knees in the oil-tainted mud. Dean clapped his hands over his ears but the murderous sound resonated up through his bones, transforming his body into a tuning fork for an archangel's grief and rage. Dean felt himself vomit in a convulsive heave and what came up was bile and acidic guilt.

When he came back to himself he opened his eyes to find Gabriel now close enough to touch, the soles of his white sneakers hovering inches above the rain lashed sludge. Dean blinked away the water clinging to his lashes and saw for the first time the archangel held something in his arms.

No, not something. _Someone_. A loose jumble of arms and legs, the dark head thrown back not in submission but sickness.

Castiel.

Made even smaller than Dean had felt himself to be, a broken doll of string and wire. Bracelets of dark fabric circled his wrists, the frayed remains of the suit that had swaddled him. Without it or the trench coat the angel looked more naked than Dean had known a person could, exposed in a fashion the models in his magazines could not match.

Gabriel shifted the limp body, rolling it to show the sigil craved into the vessel's chest. The smell of rot rose up under the tang of ozone in the air, vaguely sweet and all the more distressing for it. Swelling distorted the geometric design, the lines black and pulpy at their edges.

"Fix it."

God's messenger spoke with the voice of a trumpet, ringing high and clear over the constant growl of thunder. The command echoed back on itself until it became the Word, impossible to defy. Dean wrenched away from Sam's steadying hand and took Castiel from Gabriel's hold, slogging his way back toward the house with a haste that left him clumsy.

Bobby met them at the threshold with the Colt in hand and only Sam's protests kept him from blowing Gabriel away on the spot. Dean ignored the ongoing debate and dropped his burden on the couch before going in search of medical supplies.

It pained him to offer praise to the absent son of a bitch in the sky, but the simple truth was that Bobby was a godsend. There were antibiotics in the closet, IV fluids under the kitchen sink, ice bags rimmed by frost in the freezer.

"Can't you just make with the snappy snap?" he asked Gabriel as he slid a catheter into Castiel's vein.

"If I could, do you think I would have turned to you lot for help? Castiel was too clever by half when he made the damn thing. My Grace can't touch it and first aid isn't one of my skill sets."

Gabriel looked down at where Castiel lay splayed across the cushions like a dead thing and shook his head. His smile spooked Dean, the expression too honest to suit the mobile face and falling halfway between exasperated and fond. The look was familiar, one he knew from a thousand roach-infested motels where Sam had bent over his computer while Dean turned up the radio as far as it would go, the look one brother gives another when the bonds of blood are only just holding back the desire to punch the stupid out of each other.

And maybe angels were one big cosmically dysfunctional family, but as far as Dean was concerned the archangel hadn't earned the right to look at Castiel like that. Not when the last time they'd met Gabriel had left Castiel's eyes as bruised as his face. The angel's faith had first faltered while he faced Gabriel across a ring of fire, long before his Father had officially kicked him to the curb.

"So you came charging in here and destroyed half my yard to ask for **help**?" Bobby groused. He was all but invisible behind Sam, who had apparently decided the best way to ensure Gabriel remained intact was to keep himself in the line of fire.

"Call me a cynic, but I'm pretty sure I can blame at least one of you for my little bro showing up half-dead. Let me guess- a plan went pear-shaped and Castiel drew the short straw for the role of noble sacrifice."

Dean let Sam take up the task of explaining Zachariah's plans for Adam and their failed attempt at rescue, turning his own attention back to Castiel. What had started as a simple infection of a relatively minor wound had become systematic. Dean's focus narrowed to the blade of the scalpel as it punched down into pockets of corruption, releasing spurts of honey colored pus. He trimmed back the dead skin until the blood ran bright, threading Penrose drains into the deeper holes to keep them from closing back over.

Through it all he was aware the body under his hands was not his angel's. It was a truth he had known but never fully grasped, not until he saw what walked behind Gabriel's eyes. He understood now how a battle between Lucifer and Michael could lay waste to the earth, his visions of hammering punches and clashing swords naïve and thoroughly human.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked. Sam cut short his description of Zachariah's death and looked over at Dean in confusion, gesturing at the vessel as if the answer lay in the borrowed sack of meat and fluids. "Not Novack. What's wrong with Castiel?"

If pressed, Dean wouldn't have been able to explain how he knew the angel suffered. The feel of it hung heavy in the room, pushed out with the shallow rise and fall of the mutilated chest. Dean found his own breathing slowing to match, as if he could tie Castiel to the world by the shared burn. In the oh-so-mortal act of exchanging air, Dean felt the wax and wane of Grace more clearly than he ever had.

He listened while Gabriel told them of his stand against Lucifer. How Castiel had snatched him away, diving past at a speed that left the Elysian Fields Hotel leveled in his wake. Of the cost Castiel had paid for the rescue, a cost that might have been lessened if the angel hadn't flown on a wing already bloodied and broken. The archangel spoke slowly, giving the story in the manner of confession. He trailed off at the end, head tilting back as if absolution could be found in the water-stained ceiling above.

"I was going to say yes," Dean said, exchanging sin for sin instead. If Gabriel had been the first to fray Castiel's faith and the God the one to shatter, it had been Dean who ground the remnants to dust under his heels. The least of what he owed Castiel was honesty. "He didn't want to stick around to see it go down. That's why he took on Zachariah's goon squad."

There was something soft about the way Gabriel looked at him then, his shoulders slumping as if weighted by terrible fatigue. "What changed your mind?"

Dean shrugged. "I decided to be selfish just a little while longer."

Dean knew himself. He knew that his strength and his weakness were the same, knew that in the end it would always come down to Sammy. Not for loyalty or love, but out of the old fear of being left behind, of feeling emptiness as his back where a brother should stand. To say yes would be to go somewhere Sam could not follow.

Gabriel made a show of looking around the room. "Unless you're hiding baby Winchester away, I'm going to assume your little rescue mission failed." The archangel nodded to Dean, his tone more gentle than accusing. "Which means Castiel threw himself back home and got his wing split open for nothing. Just like my big thrown down with Lucy would have accomplished nothing expect getting my beautiful ass killed. Looks like we both screwed up on this one."

Dean was halfway through a reply when his brain tripped over Gabriel's words and fell flat. "Wait- what? You mean Heaven? He sent himself to Heaven?"

He heard the pride in Gabriel's tone as he went over the banishing sigil's creation, but his floundering mind had no room left to absorb the details of its markings or its dual use as both weapon and beacon. All he could see was the disbelief on Castiel's face when he walked into the panic room and recognized the trap for what it was. Dean had taken it for straightforward surprise, but now he knew the look for what it was.

Betrayal.

It was the silence that drew Dean out of the memory. Gabriel's brow was furrowed, his head tilted to the side in a manner that bore only a passing resemblance to Castiel's. There was nothing of curiosity in the gesture, just the coiling of muscle and purpose like a snake readying itself to strike.

"Dean- what did you do?"

Gabriel already knew. Dean could see it in the way the archangel's eyes deepened, filling with the dust of civilizations past. He didn't flinch when the lights cut out in a shower of sparks.

"I didn't know! I swear, I didn't know!" Dean told the darkness, speaking over Bobby's shouted threats and Sam's cursing. "He didn't tell me."

_I didn't ask. _

There was time to think of blood on the walls of a prophet, to wonder if it would hurt when his body fell to pieces. Time to realize he had lost the cadence of Jimmy Novak's breathing, leaving Castiel to struggle on alone.

The click when it came was shattering, piercing the night with the violence of a gunshot. Dean did flinch then, screwing shut his useless eyes. A minute or more passed before he realized he was still whole.

He opened his eyes to a world aflame.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean was dead in Hell longer than he was alive on Earth.

The memories were muted through his waking hours but in dreams they came again, those forty years of brimstone choices. The horrors of the pit would walk behind him for the rest of his days, the death that stalked at his left shoulder. In quiet moments he could it whispering in Alastair's voice, asking that same dread question.

_Are you ready to let go? _

It wasn't the pain that broke him. Dean had learned well at his father's knee the myriad ways pain could become a weapon, a tool, an excuse. The loss of his wife had hardened John Winchester's soul to a diamond edge. Pushed against it, Dean had been given no choice but to bleed, made stronger by the webbing of a thousand and one tiny scars.

And Alastair knew it, all of it, his skill stretching far behind the scalpel. What he had offered Dean was nothing more or less than the chance to rest. For the first time since his mother died, he was being given permission to **stop**.

To let someone else carry the burden, even if (especially if) that someone had not volunteered to take up the weight. From his earliest days, responsibility had been Dean's watchword, and he knew better than most that responsibility was always all or nothing.

It had taken thirty years of blade and scourge for Dean to see that he could choose nothing, that to say yes to Alastair was to say no to obligation. No to staying strong, to taking it on the chin, to sacrifice. No even to Sammy, who deserved better for a brother.

He held out a decade longer than he might have because of that fear, that last thin thread that bound him to the mortal skein. Somewhere up above Sam was searching, wasting the life Dean had bartered for researching loopholes in the laws of Hell. He owed it to his brother to resist, so that if Sam should succeed there would be something left worth saving.

Now, with the end of the world bearing down, the horror Dean felt at being cast back to the Pit was tempered by an instant of relief. Only an instant, less than the span of a breath, a single beat of the heart, but it was there and it shamed him. Here there would be freedom from decisions that could alter the fate of mankind.

Here there would be only one choice, to endure or to let go, and the answer was always only a matter of time.

The first time around he'd woken already chained, orientation given in the form of Alistair's smile as he cut through ribs to fondle the lobes of Dean's lungs. To find himself unfettered and alone was almost worse, the small reprieve granting little comfort when he knew so well what was to come.

He thought of escape but it was vague, reflexive, the last twitch of a dying muscle. Where was there to go? The entreaties of the lost were all around him, crying out with one voice the same excuse Dean had given Gabriel.

_Forgive us, hallowed be thy name, have mercy, we didn't know oh Lord we didn't know-_

But under the choir of screams came something new. The clash and clang of sword on sword should have blended into the rattle of chains, but Dean had seen battle too often not to recognize the din of war. In the distance pure light flared, bright even against the backdrop of fire, winking out a complex rhythm.

It should have been meaningless, but somehow the knowledge was there, the translation effortless. This was the last go/no go point before they ventured too deep to withdraw and the order was go, **go now**. He pulled his wings in tight and flipped forward into a dive, as smooth and sure as if he moved through water instead of superheated void.

It was then that Dean understood what Gabriel had done.

With awareness came a deepening. Castiel ripped downward at an incredible pace that left Dean no time for fear. He could feel the angel's perfect trust, in his wings and in his brothers, in the Father he had never known. He would succeed in his mission, if God wished it so, and if he should fail, if he should fall into the depths and never rise, that too would be by way of the Father he loved so well.

_Thy will, Father, thy will be done-_

It was the only prayer he knew. It gave him comfort as his garrison faltered behind him, as the death cries of his brothers bloodied the air. Hellfire licked at his pinions, crisping black the delicate interlocking barbs. Just ahead loomed a forest of chains, capable of cleaving him in twain at this speed if he hesitated for the barest of seconds.

Castiel did not hesitate.

There was no fear as he wove between the rusted strands, only a singing joy, the challenge of the unpredictable updrafts in this dark place something he took up with utter gratitude. He (they) were deep indeed now, Grace stretching out toward the soul bound to it by the sigils of duty and redemption. The anguish of countless souls tore at his concentration, but in this tedium of suffering Castiel was given to bear up only one. The righteous man.

And Dean saw himself through Castiel's eyes.

He had known himself before to be a small thing, made of dust and spittle and just as easily returned to it. But in Castiel he was made large, the focus of a singular and terrible faith. Dean stood before a rack holding a writhing soul there was no disgust in Castiel at the sight. Nor did he find Dean beautiful. He judged him not yet found him the pinnacle of his Father's creation, this flickering mortal spark with whip in hand.

In the instant before Castiel was upon him, Dean found himself quite suddenly **himself** again, turning in response to Alastair's cry of rage. Turning and looking up, into a luminance that would have burned out his eyes had he been alive.

And oh, he was a beautiful thing, Castiel, beautiful in the way the stoop of a falcon is beautiful, form and function indelibly knotted, designed for just this thing, to climb high and cut down. His Grace unbound by a vessel and expanding through dimensions, a tesseract of impossible color, the blue at the heart of all lesser shades that pretended to the hue. The wings muscle and bone, tendon and feathers, the angel not otherworldly after all but tied to it by way of wind.

Dean fought when the angel gripped him. He could do nothing else, for all of this had happened before his past self's fury touching him only distantly. But through the connection formed by burning touch he felt the angel trying to squash the small, prideful hope that God might return to speak with the righteous man, that in saving Dean, Castiel might be the one to bring his Father home.

_Thy will be done- _

_

* * *

_

Dean opened his eyes to a world gone dark.

No, not gone dark, simply **still** dark. He was back in Bobby's living room, Sam's frantic shouts echoing against the walls.

"Dean? Dean!"

Dean's first attempt at an answer was a high squeak. He covered it over with a cough and swallowed hard. "Here, Sammy. Right here."

"What the hell did he do to you, boy?" The wheel of Bobby's chair ran over Dean's foot as he crowded close, patting Dean down with one hand to check for blood. Dean accepted the manhandling without complaint, all too grateful for the grounding touch. "You were dead quiet for a minute there."

Dean's laughter had an ugly edge that made Bobby's hand go still. "A minute, huh? Guess I got off light, then. Not like you, Sammy."

He sought out Gabriel, turning to face the area of thrumming power near the couch. A foreign memory rose and he knew that where Castiel was blue, Gabriel was green. His human mind quaked when it tried to capture the shade, jolting with pain before offering the compromise of new grass and velvet moss.

"Could you do something about the lights?" Dean asked.

The archangel packed an incredible amount of sarcasm into a single snort. Bobby shifted and Dean caught the other man's wrist before he could aim the Colt. There was a brief tug of war over the weapon before Bobby let go. Dean emptied the gun of its ammo and tucked the bullets into a pocket.

"How about now?"

Gabriel snapped his fingers and light flooded the room, diffuse but all pervading. The archangel smiled at Dean. The expression was hard to define, what anger remained softened and very human. He raised a brow in question and Dean nodded.

"Yeah, you made your point."

"What the hell-" Sam sputtered, "What did he **do**, Dean?"

The saturated light served only to highlight the fever flush across Novack's cheeks. Dean waited for vessel to take its next breath before he allowed himself to do the same, bringing them back into alignment.

_Gabriel didn't do anything, Sam. I did it all and I didn't even know, didn't listen when Castiel tried to tell me. Like a puck ass kid throwing rocks at a pigeon and crying his head off when he kills it. I took his wings and his faith and shit, that's all he was, so what the hell is left?_

"I fucked up, Sammy," Dean said, "I fucked up so damn bad."


	5. Chapter 5

While Dean winged fast and sure through the fires of the deep, Castiel traveled the road.

For Castiel, finding himself at the wheel of the Impala roused more anger than confusion. He could sense what Gabriel had wrought, the crude twining of human soul and angelic Grace. His brother, once trusted, once loved, had bound Castiel within the memories of another, a violation more invasive than any breach of mortal flesh.

The road rolled out dark and empty, a thin swath cut through fields of sepia grains. The Impala's vibrations shuddered up sweet and aching through the bones of his legs. The hum was a comfort, as familiar and dear as a mother's heartbeat, offering strength for the trial ahead.

Castiel shied back from the swell of mingled hope and fear. What Castiel felt, he felt wholly, his faith untempered by doubt, his despair monochrome gray. Dean felt in shadowed shades, emotions rising up flash bright and fading as quickly. All of it centered on the end of the journey, on Stanford and Sam, on finding the words he would need to bring his brother home.

Anger first, that this should be necessary, that two years of silence had been so easy for his brother to endure. Softened by pride, in Sammy for making himself anew, for becoming more than they were given. Bitterness that Sam dismissed Dean's work as a child's game of imitation, a mewing cry for approval instead of a choice made with eyes wide open.

And always that dreadful fear, that awful hope. Fear that his brother would refuse the call to arms. Fear that he would step without qualm back into the fold, would make Dean responsible for the unmaking of all that Sammy had built for himself.

Hope that he would find his brother happy, fulfilled by his life of books and law. Hope that he would find Sam unsatisfied, missing something deep inside himself he could not name. Missing Dean.

Beneath it all, that slick mess of want indistinguishable from need, unexpected faith. Not in Sam, not in his missing father. In the road, cracked asphalt and broken yellow lines, the same long stretch that waited outside every small town, that would wait for himself outside Stanford whether he left alone or with a brother. It belonged to him and he belonged to it, his fate tied to choices made at crossroads under the light of the autumn moon.

_Curse you, Gabriel. Why show me this? I did not want to know. _

Did not want to feel it, that unquestioning faith so like his own. The wind rushing through the Impala's open window was turbulent and chill, and when Dean turned his face to it, Castiel remembered joy.

Gabriel, given dominion over the powerful things of Heaven, the armies of Seraphim and Host. Castiel, given nomads, vagabonds, guardian to all who traveled lonely and lost. He had forgotten that, who he was, what he was meant to be. Long before the first seal was broken, Dean had been his charge, a fellow wanderer who knew the road for what it was, a living thing that loved its children.

Castiel's own days of roaming across vast distances had ended. He could feel his true self through the distance of time and Grace, could sense the ruin of wings that had borne him up over frothing seas. But the journey had not yet ended and there was still work to be done.

But for now, this precious little while, Castiel allowed himself to sink further into Dean and together they rambled on.

* * *

His vessel burned.

Lancing heat, melting skin and boiling blood, turning his mortal shell into a contained inferno. Castiel shivered with it, forcing open eyes crusted with secretions.

He sensed Dean before he saw him, the last tie between them stretching taunt and snapping with a tearing that made Castiel wince. The human slept, curled awkwardly on a straight backed chair, neck flopped over at an angle that would ensure stiffness on waking. The righteous man, drooling on his cheek like a child, fingers twitching as he moaned in lustful dreams.

"Our savior," Gabriel said, "We should turn ourselves over to Lucifer right now. I think you impressed him- maybe he'll be merciful and kill us off quick."

The archangel stood at the foot of the bed, posing in the dawn light streaming through the window. Castiel's Grace quaked at his presence, pulling back tight and bristled. Gabriel dropped the posturing, spreading his hands wide to show them as empty.

"Castiel...I'm not…I wouldn't…"

But he had, when last they met, trapping Castiel in darkness, punishing his sins with wounds and blows. Castiel had accepted it without protest, knowing it was far less than what he owed. He carried the weight of his slain brothers, bearing him down low to the earth. The discipline, little as it was, had been a comfort, an acknowledgment of his transgressions against his own.

Gabriel growled, a sound that resonated like the Impala's purr. He snapped his fingers when Dean started to stir, pushing the human down into deeper slumber. Castiel bowed his head, submitting to judgment, needing it, the scouring of the taint of stolen life. It could not be erased, but perhaps if Gabriel hit hard enough, long enough, it could be lessened enough for Castiel to recognize himself again.

He felt the first brush of Grace against his own and opened to it. Gabriel pulled him closer, away from his damaged vessel, surrounding him on every side with power green and humbling. _'I'm sorry,'_ Castiel said to him, _'For what I've taken, the ones we've lost. I'm so sorry.' _

And then Gabriel did a terrible thing. Crueler by far than any lash of Grace, brutal in a way Castiel had forgotten he could be.

He forgave.

Castiel crumbled beneath it, ripped wide, hemorrhaging grief. And Gabriel caught him, whispered words of comfort and absolution. He shared memories of those he himself had cut down in battle, spoke their names with reverence and urged Castiel to do the same.

Aftiel. Gamidoi. Samyaza. Varcan.

On and on, their voices overlapping, making of the names a song. Remembering each for their beauty, honoring the enemy as they would lost friends.

Sachluph. Gadal. Charbiel. Baraqel.

An accounting, both of sins and courage, a burden shared if not lessened. When it was over Castiel pressed closer, grasping greedy at the comfort he had been so long without. Gabriel met him halfway and his love was bright, blinding, healing wounds Castiel had not realized he carried.

'_Oh, Gabriel, I missed this. I missed you.' _

Gabriel's laugh was honey, thick and golden, his Grace curled along Castiel's until they flowed together at the edges. _'My brother. My own.' _

They stayed woven until Castiel weakened, the forgotten hurt of his wings flaring vicious and muddy. Gabriel pressed him back into his vessel and when Castiel gasped at the separation kissed his forehead, his own borrowed body's lips rasping dry against Novak's skin.

"You know what I have to do," he said against the fevered flesh.

Castiel looked over his vessel's left shoulder, seeing through dimensions to where his wing trailed open. What had been bone overlaid by strong muscles now so much useless meat, twitching fitfully with the impulses of ruined nerves. "Don't let Dean wake."

"Close your eyes."

When Castiel obeyed Gabriel pressed a gentle kiss against each lid, then one to his lips, deeper and probing. Physicality wasn't something Castiel had explored, but now he understood the comfort of touch, so different from the blending of Grace, so much more **present**. The lingering taste of Gabriel gave him something to focus on when the archangel withdrew.

He waited in the silence, full of sweet gratitude to his brother for making this a choice, for waiting until Castiel could feel it. He screamed when the blade came down and sliced through the remnants of his glory, but the pain was precious, the last sensation he would ever know from the wing that had carried him above the fields of Heaven.

Gabriel's lips were on his again, swallowing the last quivering note of his cry, licking away his tears. His right wing spread wide and it was so strange, to have that movement go unechoed. He grappled with the archangel, kissing back with frantic strength, wanting to climb up inside Gabriel's skin, into his Grace, anything to leave behind the ruin of his self.

And he saw that his journey with Dean had not been a punishment, not a lesson, but Gabriel's gift, given with Grace deep understanding of what flight meant to Castiel. It gentled him, to be known so well, so fully, to have his sacrifice respected.

Castiel pulled back, just far enough to look Gabriel in the eye, seeing behind the vessel to the Grace that had greeted him on the day of his birth. "I forgive you too," he said, catching the archangel's chin when he tried to turn from the words. "For all of it. Everything."

He pressed his lips to the high forehead, wound his Grace tight around his brother's, absorbed into himself the first shudder of Gabriel's sobs. _'If I be yours, then you be mine. My Gabriel, my brother, my own.' _

He held his brother while Dean snored nearby and realized what had been made here would soon be sundered, one or both of them lost in the final stand against Lucifer. And he knew, quite suddenly, what he had to do.


	6. Chapter 6

He tumbled down, windblown and breathless, high above the patchwork earth.

It should have terrified him, to fall from height, the promise of a death that could not be grappled or bargained off. Instead he smiled as he fell, for he knew the ground would not have him this day. His wings were strong and with them he could fly close to the sun without fear. All he need do was open them wide and take this formless place and its currents for his own.

Dean woke in slow stages, grasping after the last fading wisps of his dream. Mere flashes remained, white clouds against a backdrop of blue sky, but the euphoria of freedom lingered, making his heart leap against its latticework cage.

He sighed without opening his eyes, feeling himself return heavy to his body. Its myriad compliments helped further ground him, the joints of his neck throbbing heavy like a rotten tooth.

When he did open his eyes light lanced them, what had been the threat of a headache flaring to brutal life at the assault. And he realized that light meant dawn and failure in his self-appointed mission to watch over Castiel through the long hours of the night.

His neck cracked when he jerked his head around to stare at the bed. He half-expected to find a corpse splayed out beneath the sheets, but what he did see scarcely lessened his concern.

Castiel, awake and staring back, cradling a limp Gabriel against his side. The archangel's own eyes open but glassy, the pupils blown wide, emptied of history and power.

"What the fu…"

"Hush," Castiel admonished, "He needs to rest."

"That's sleep?" Dean asked. He had never seen Castiel do anything of the sort, had only witnessed the angel still when he had been injured (and he tried hard not to think of Castiel left behind in the past, vulnerable and bleeding, battered once again by their expectations.)

"Of a kind. He's gone inside. It's something we only dare do in the company of those we trust."

Well, that answered that question. The way Castiel looked down at the archangel with affection and quiet pride made Dean want to shout, do something, anything, to rouse Gabriel from his mockery of slumber. "You two seem awfully chummy considering he chucked you into a wall last time around."

"I forgive him," Castiel said, as if things could be that simple, that easy.

Dean pushed his irritation aside and leaned forward to feel Novak's forehead. The skin was still heated, leaving a slick of sweat across Dean's fingertips. He busied himself with fetching a fresh bag of fluids to replace the one that hung deflated from the bedpost. Here was something he could do that Gabriel could not, for what little it meant to the angel inside the vessel.

"Is Jimmy still in there?"

"No."

There was a wealth of sorrow in that single word, a loss gone too long unmourned. Dean wondered if Gabriel felt anything for the man he rode, if in the long millennia of the archangel's life he had ever given his vessel the chance to rise and rethink prayers answered by a Trickster God.

He knew Castiel better than he ever had, through memories shared and dreams of flight, but he still understood so little of angels. He had wanted to remake Castiel in the image of mankind, to reduce him in stature and strip away his shield of holiness.

He had even dared to compare the angel's faith in his Father to Dean's own. But Dean had always known his father for a man, capable of cruelty in word and deed equal to the good he wrought. He had loved him, admired him, but he had not worshipped him.

And if Castiel had answered the call, had become something both and less than what he had been, that was by his own strength and not Dean's own. Of all of them the angel had shown the most ability to change, to walk a new path while Dean himself dug in his heels, clinging to old thoughts and stale habits.

These words and more were heavy on his tongue, but what escaped was simply "Castiel."

Just a name, three syllables, but carrying an acknowledgment that Dean had no right to the familiar.

But Castiel's hand touched him own, stilling his almost frantic fussing with the IV line. The angel looked at him, looked **through** him, as he had that first night, when he had told Dean his path had been chosen for him and expected of Dean to rejoice.

But there was new wisdom there, in the blue Grace behind blue eyes, and Dean submitted to it. Bowed low his head, as he had not done when faced with an archangel's fury.

"I'm sorry," he said, and here were words after all, apologies vomited up without control. "For the banishing trick most of all. But also for…for asking so much, and giving back so fucking little."

The angel's hand settled against his cheek, transfixing him in place and forcing him to meet that unblinking gaze. He could still see the predator there, the bird of prey he knew Castiel to be, but a strange peace had softened the soldier's thousand yard stare.

"I forgive you too."

But Dean growled, shook off that hand, shook off the unexpected and unwelcome absolution. "Bullshit," he said, voice still pitched low, not for Gabriel's sake but in deference to Castiel's desire to protect the archangel. "I hurt you."

"You did," Castiel said, "That is what I am forgiving."

His face was impassive; his voice so serene and controlled that it was all Dean could do not to shake him. Whatever else Castiel had become, he was not Christ, capable of turning the other cheek against the harshest of insults.

"I blew you back to Heaven. I asked you to kill your brothers to protect mine. I had you put your faith in me and failed at every turn." Dean's voice broke with the effort of keeping to a whisper, grinding rough across the words. "I took your wing."

It took the last to get a reaction. Castiel stiffened, something dangerous and bright sparking in his eyes. "We burned it, Gabriel and I, consigned it to ash and smoke. I feel it still, a phantom weight at my back, and without it I do not believe I will ever find my balance."

Had Dean thought honesty would hurt less than false peace? The confession was a shiv to the heart, slipping under his guard and sliding in deep. He closed his eyes against the pain and resting his head against closed fists in parody of prayer.

"Dean."

So soft, so gentle, a parent coaxing a child. Dean shook his head, refusing to be comforted.

"**No**, Castiel. Don't you dare sit there and pretend I didn't fuck up six ways to Sunday. I may not know much, but I damn well know that forgiveness requires penance. I don't want to ask anything else, but I'm going to ask that. Let me earn it."

Silence. Long enough for Dean to grow restless, to slit open his eyes and peer up through his lashes.

Blue captured him, not the blue of Novak's eyes but the impossible, searing blue of Grace unfolding. It should have melted his orbs from their sockets, to see Castiel as he was, one winged but still so very beautiful.

"You said you asked much and returned little," Castiel said and Dean heard the song beneath the words, also blue and holding within itself the whole of the sky. "You gave me questions, Dean. Questions that needed asking. You gave me truth and the courage to face it. You gave to me my brother and returned the road I had forgotten.

For all that I have lost, I thank you for these things."

The vision faded and there was only Cas, ducking his head to capture Dean's lowered gaze, as Dean had done when he pleaded with the angel in Heaven's prison. "Have you lost nothing in this war, Dean? Have you gained nothing in return?"

Dean looked at Gabriel, still lost inside, wherever that might be, and thought of trust strained and twisted. Trust in Sam, but also trust in himself, in his ability to make the right choices, to stand fast against temptation and the easy way out.

And he thought of trust found, in an angel that had started off the enemy and had become that rarest of all things, a friend.

Castiel reached out again and this time Dean did not pull back, letting the angel cup his cheek. "Do not ask of me to hate you. Not now. I am angry, I am wounded, but I cannot hate you."

"Yeah, okay. I hear ya, man. But just…knock it off with the peace and love shit, okay? If you want to kick my ass, do it. Anytime."

Castiel's thumb brushed over his cheekbone before the angel withdrew. "Very well. But for now, we must speak of what to do next. Lucifer is angered and we must strike before he does."

The shift in topic caught Dean off guard and he fumbled before replying. "Gabriel?" he asked.

Castiel's arm tightened around the archangel. The jostling brought Gabriel sharply back to himself, life and power surging into his empty eyes. Dean had not sensed the loss of energy in the room until it came flooding back, raising the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck.

"No," Castiel said to them both, "Never again."

"He's right. I am the best bet we have." Gabriel settled into the conversation as if he'd been a part of it from the start, making Dean flush at the realization his discussion with Castiel had been overhead. "I hesitated last time. I won't make the same mistake twice."

Gabriel made no attempt to separate himself from the lesser angel's hold, if anything pressed closer. Such open acceptance of comfort and support felt like an affront to Dean, made him draw back all the more to balance some unconscious scale.

"No," Castiel said again, and there was strength and assurance in his voice that hadn't been there in too long. "We cannot win this battle with a show of strength. There's another way, one I should have seen from the start."

He gestured toward the only wall free of doors and windows. A spiraling pattern appeared, weak and flickering at first, then bursting into brilliant life when Gabriel caught on and clicked his fingers.

"The final seal?" the archangel asked.

"The key," Castiel agreed.

"Okay, you're losing me," Dean said, "I know that's Enochian, but you're saying that's what sprung Lucifer when Lilith died, right?"

He carefully did not say when Sam killed her, but the way Gabriel rolled his eyes made it clear nothing had been forgotten. Castiel ignored the interplay, nodding in answer to Dean's question.

"With hooks they captured him and with chains they tethered him to the walls of the prison, deep below the crust of the earth. For God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down, to be held fast until the day of final judgment."

Castiel spoke slowly, the story refined through long years of telling into the cadence of poetry.

"They locked the cage with seals 600. And the last was writ in the sigils of righteousness and justice, but also in servant and sacrifice. A key, where might have been a solid door, but they questioned not why. For their Father's ways were mysterious to men and angels alike, his Word of truth and glory."

He held up two fingers and Dean leaned into them without qualm, accepting the hard press against his temple. Power arched between them, making Dean gasp in something between pleasure and pain.

And the glyphs on the wall came suddenly clear, the pattern fine and complicated. Dean saw where the seal was meant to be broken, by the blood of a demon willfully and joyfully given in service to a greater cause.

And he saw too where a change could be made, a single substitution enough to close what had been opened.

"Oh, fuck no!"

Dean's curse blended with Gabriel's, brought them together in protest. Castiel smiled at them both, smiled, damn him, sweet and natural, as if he had settled into his shell of flesh at last.

"Do not deny me this," he said, "There is no other way, and even if there were nothing would change for me in the aftermath. Without my wings I am as an ant upon the earth and they would harry me across it until the end of my days. Let me do this thing and spare my kin the seeking of vengeance."

"I can hide you." Gabriel spoke over the tail end of Castiel's plea, raising his voice as if he could deny the plan by drowning it out. "If I do nothing else well, I do that."

"They'll need you, after. It will be on you to wrest control from Michael and bring peace to Heaven."

Dean cursed himself for sleeping, for giving Castiel time to consider their arguments and prepare his defense. What he had mistaken for tranquility in Castiel's eyes had been instead the last stage of grief, his seeming forgiveness of Dean's crimes against him just another way of saying goodbye. He felt himself in freefall and this time he had no promise of wings to catch him and bear him high.

"Castiel, Cas, I…"

And even now there were words he could not say, thick, sticky words that caught in his throat and deepened his voice to an animal sound. He lurched forward instead, butting his forehead against the angel's, a violent offer so that Castiel might absorb those things he dared not speak, so that the angel might have a reason to **stay**.

Now it was Castiel who drew back, holding Dean at distance with a shake of his head.

"I know, Dean."

And Dean shuddered because he knew what came next, what always came next when he gave up himself.

"But it isn't enough."


	7. Chapter 7

In the end, it came down to Sam.

Gabriel had known that it would, from the first time he set eyes on the boy and recognized him for what he was, a fellow trickster. It had always been on their kind to steal for humanity those things denied, be it water, fire, or a chance at survival.

What Gabriel had stolen had been no less than Heaven, that promised place to which no angel could aspire. They were not given to interfere with the passage of a mortal soul without orders, but one by one he had tormented and beguiled, leading his chosen victims by the hand to redemption. In those seconds before justice crashed down on their heads most prayed, and that was all God required of his favored creations.

For those few who died without the Creator's name on their lips, Gabriel felt no remorse. His Father had given them free will even as he shackled Gabriel with bonds of love. Their choices were their own, their refusal to take the gift of paradise in the face of ironic death too pathetic not to be humorous. In Gabriel's darker moments, as he watched yet another soul ascending screaming toward paradise, he understood Lucifer's rage at being cast aside for mankind.

But where Lucifer viewed all of humanity as lesser than the angels, Gabriel saw little difference between the two. Mankind's flaws and foibles were not unique, the extremes of greed and rage as prevalent above as below. Nor could he could accept that their capacity for kindness was any greater than his own. The tears he wept over a stricken soldier burned every bit as much as those shed by Abraham as he stood above his son.

Gabriel loved his Father. In this too he had been given little choice, but it did not prevent him from understanding the game for what it was. They were all pawns, humans and angels both, toys to be played with and discarded at whim.

For God loved them but his love was perfect and cold. When you love all equally, when love is flawless and guaranteed, it ceases to have meaning. Gabriel had not understood that until he found one among them all to love more than the rest.

The love he felt for the others, even God, was soft and shapeless. His love for Castiel was hard, a thing of hooks and thorns. It scraped raw against his Grace and wore it thin, raised raw welts across the surface of his heart, precious little wounds that he carried with pride.

In accepting his love for Castiel, Gabriel found he could look upon humanity with a certain tender pity. Because of Sam. Because there were tricksters and brothers among them, so like himself, full of cunning and just as desperate in the face of loss.

And it was a shame that Sam had never embraced that part of his soul. He had denied his darkness, fought it at every turn, used it only when it was sure to hurt. But the color of purity was white; white the absence of shade and hue. Far better to be gray, to straddle the line and leave open options on either side.

In Gabriel was coyote, the little laughing god who sowed destruction in his wake so that new crops might grow. In Sam was raven, the wise one who always returned to watch over the people whose lives he touched. They shared the same charisma, that ability to get under the skin and settle in, but it was Sam who took note of the bigger picture, who could step back and trace the web that bound them all.

For their plan to succeed Sam would need to embrace the trickster within and fool the greatest of deceivers. He would have to make peace with the ruthless strength buried deep in his soul, long enough to leap headlong into the cage while Gabriel took up his blade…

_Finish it, damn you. Finish the thought. If you cannot think it, how will you do it? _

…and killed his brother.

His own, his Castiel. Gabriel's to keep and Gabriel's to set free, whatever it might cost him. Gladly he would stand in his brother's stead, but this sacrifice was not his to make. It was time for Gabriel to return home and time for Castiel to journey on, to answer the riddle he had posed in his first moments of life.

_Where do we go when we die? _

The memory ached, a deep throb at the center of his Grace. There had been no anxiety in the question. Just curiosity, burning bright, before orders and discipline had taught Castiel to hide the better parts of himself.

Maybe it had never been a choice after all. For when faced with such a strange and beautiful thing, that question and that Grace, blue and wondering, how could Gabriel have done any less than love?

And so he would use his blade against his brother. Not because it was the most logical course as Castiel claimed, but for love's sake. He would do this terrible thing because Castiel had asked it of him, because his brother had spoken a bitter truth. Dean's friendship, Gabriel's brotherhood…they weren't enough. Couldn't fill the hole left by wild winds and distant earth.

He could not save his brother. But perhaps, if he had courage, he might yet save Sam.

He found the boy inside, watching Dean's methodical destruction of a clunker of a van from the safety of the backdoor. Sam jumped slightly when Gabriel touched down behind him, tipping his head back in acknowledgement.

"All things considered, I think he's taking it pretty well," he said, "So, when does everything go down?"

"Two days. The equinox." There was no real significance to the date and possible danger in the delay, but Gabriel had played at being pagan too long not to need the comfort of it.

They watched Dean's rampage for a time. Gabriel whistled low at the boy's skill with a crowbar, impressed despite himself.

"I made him promise," Sam said unbidden, "That he wouldn't give up. That he'd go on and live the apple pie life he always dreamed about."

He flushed before he finished speaking, as if the words had escaped without permission. "Sam," Gabriel said, "That's your dream, not Dean's."

His tone was gentle, but only because it was all so familiar. Gabriel had spent his life in mourning, but until Castiel had forced it he had never wasted tears upon himself. Just as Sam stood only days from death and thought of his brother's future, extracting promises they both had to know would not be kept.

"Anyway, you're getting ahead of yourself," he said, "Who says you can't come back out of the hole?"

Sam started to speak, blinked, then tried again. "You did," he said, "When we went over the plan this morning. "

Gabriel brushed that aside with a flap of his hand. "I say a lot of things. What if you could carry old Lucy over and leave him there?"

"How? If it means becoming a demon, I'm so not game."

"You ditch your meatsuit. Let Lucifer keep it if he wants it so bad, but without it you won't be tied to him anymore. I should be able to slip you out through the bars."

Sam was shaking his head but the movement was slow and methodical, reflecting not so much denial as disbelief. "So I'd be a ghost, then?"

"That's an option but probably not a very convenient one," Gabriel said, "Or you could stuff yourself into Castiel's vessel. He won't be needing it anymore and Novak flew the coop the first go round with death. No reason to let it go to waste."

"Gabriel…" Sam spat the name like it was choking him, but after that first guttural growl his voice dropped to a whisper. "How can you laugh about this?"

"Because if I don't, I'm going to scream, and if I scream your head will explode?"

He expected Sam to argue, but the boy just looked at him, steady and doleful. There was pity in his eyes, compassion and empathy in equal measure, and oh, how Gabriel hated him for it.

"Look, do you want an out or not?" he snapped, "I'm not going to beg you to let me save your ass."

_For once in your life, you stupid ignorant child, take what's being offered and don't ask questions._

"I don't…I don't know. That's really going to mess with Dean. The way he feels about Cas…"

"In or out." Gabriel shoved Sam back against the door in his haste to interrupt. How Dean did or did not feel about his brother was something he had been careful not to consider too deeply.

"Out?"

It sounded more like a question than a statement, but it was close enough to a yes for Gabriel. He touched his fingers to the furrowed forehead, slamming Sam down into sleep with unnecessary force. He made no attempt to catch the limp body as it crumbled, smirking a little at the hollow sound of Sam's skull bouncing off the cheap linoleum.

Gabriel spread his wings and followed after.

Sam was dreaming of blood and sex. Gabriel caught the boy up on the way past and dragged him deeper into his own mind, sliding down through suffocating layers of rationalizations and excuses. Down to the very core of it, that hidden place where truth walked.

And there they found the road.

Not the same dark straight stretch that Dean worshipped but gray and gently curving, rolling out from their feet and vanishing into dust behind.

"Where?" Sam asked and the question echoed back, became all the questions the boy wanted answered.

_Did Dad love us? Why wasn't it enough? Is it wrong to need something for myself? What about Dean?_

"To pull you out, I need to get a line around you, Sam. To do that, I need to know who you are."

Fields of salt bordered the road, glittering under the red glow of the sun. Monoliths jutted from the silt, rusted bicycle skeletons and moldering tree forts. A naked oak reached toward the sky, its trunk engraved with rough-hewn initials connected by the shared bird shape of the "W".

They walked on, past the ruins of a childhood that never was. Stocks and blades rose up from the crystals, an armory buried in shards of glass. Night fell quickly and in the darkness something growled. When the sun rose again nothing changed, the unseen still slavering at their heels.

The yellow line beneath their feet changed between double and single, but stayed always broken. Further down the path there were books and fire, churches and graveyards, but Gabriel did not let Sam tally. These were the things that had gone into the making of Sam Winchester, but they were not **him**, did not tell Gabriel what he needed to know.

He needed a name. A true name, one he could use to summon Sam's soul back from Lucifer's cell. A name that encompassed everything Sam was and could become, so that no part of him would be left behind.

He already knew some of the things Sam answered to. Sammy. Brother. Son. Boy. Man. Lover. Friend. Hunter. Scholar. Hero. Monster. All of them only aspects of the whole, broken reflections in a cloudy mirror.

Just as Gabriel was only one part, archangel another, trickster a third. What lay beneath was something else entirely, something green and impossibly weary.

The road was long. They walked in silence to its end, to where all was mist and shadow. And there they waited for Sam to know himself.

When he spoke the name at last it was with wonder and deep joy. It rang loud through the hollow space, a cry of claiming, of knowing, without doubt or fear.

"I am! "

And Gabriel gave his own self in return, the lessons taught and learned, the ways in which he loved and hated, the coyote with sparrow wings that lived within his Grace. All of it.

Everything.

When they rose back up to waking only minutes had passed. Dean was still venting his rage with the crowbar, shouting curses now with every blow. Castiel was still sleeping, held within the circle of his brother's Grace despite being rooms apart. Singer was still pretending to research in the living room, avoiding all of them because to speak with his boys now would be too painful.

Nothing had changed.

But he knew Sam now, and Sam knew Gabriel. And that made the world altogether different for them both.

"Why?" Sam asked.

'_Because if I told you what it meant, you might have said no,'_ Gabriel thought and knew that it was heard_, 'Because without this connection, I fear what I will do. In two days I strike my brother down. I go home, to fight against Michael, to face the ones I left behind._

'_No one has the right to ask this of another, which is why I did not ask. Forever I will know you and be known by you. You must become the thing I cannot run from, for else I may lay waste to the earth, call down Heaven's wrath upon you all for the crime of living while Castiel does not._

'_But now I will know that you are there, you alone among them all, and it will give me cause to fight. Cause to live. Even if you hate me for forcing this on you, that hatred will be more important than God's love to me, for it will be my own.' _

Sam's lips were rough and dry against his own. Gabriel opened for the kiss, hungry for it. He would have taken hate, but this, this was so much better, not quite love but fondness mingled with exasperation.

"Gabriel," Sam whispered when they parted, hand still cupping the archangel's cheek.

But what he thought was _'I would have said yes.' _


	8. Chapter 8

I don't normally do author notes here, but I just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to review. This is the final chapter and I hope you've enjoyed the ride!

* * *

On the eve of his death, Castiel was given gifts precious and rare.

He wandered among the discarded cars, trailing his fingers across metal bitten by rust. His vessel was weak, its steps stumbling and slow, but he refused to spend the day abed. There were birds in the sky, grass between the rows, and Castiel looked upon it all with mourning in his Grace.

When Sam sought him out Castiel expected to be rebuked, ushered back to the house and its suffocating walls. Instead Sam fell into step at his side, his presence doing more to ward off the chill than the coat he draped across Castiel's shoulders.

"Dean will come round," he said.

Castiel so much wanted that to be true. There had been arguments through the night, words spoken in anger and haste, ending only when Dean stormed from the bedroom at dawn. He had not seen his charge since.

He did not begrudge Dean the escape. Castiel immersed himself in the things he would miss. Dean withdrew, excising the bonds between them on his own so that it would not be done for him later. He scrambled for control, as he always had, and Castiel was loathe to take it from him.

But there were things Castiel yet wanted to say, and they had so very little time.

He allowed Sam to guide him to seat on the hood of the Impala. The car groaned under their combined weight, a quiet noise of acceptance rather than strain. "I have something for you," Sam said, "It isn't much. You might not even want it, but I…well, here."

Castiel knew what it would be before Sam withdrew the amulet from his pocket. He held out the fetish with the innocent enthusiasm of a young boy, eager to please and too easily crushed. Castiel took it in hand, feeling its cold touch against his palm.

It was Dean who taught him that when humans wanted something, they turn to falsehood. Castiel badly wanted Sam to smile. "Thank you," he said, but his false gratitude only brought shadows to the eyes that watched him with such care. Sam covered Castiel's hand with his own, fingers curling around the horned pendant that mocked the angel with memories of a quest undertaken on behalf of a Father who cared not for his sons.

"Dean didn't want it either. He threw it away." There was weary sorrow in Sam's voice, but no reproach for his brother's actions. "I understand why. But before it was about finding God, it was about making a choice."

"When I was a child, I had faith in my dad," he continued, "That wasn't something I decided on, it was just there, you know, the dumb faith that every kid has in his parents. I thought he would protect me, that he would always have the answers, and if he didn't tell me something I just accepted it was for my own good."

He smiled at Castiel and the quiet pride in it made him look younger than his years. "Then I got older, and I found out that free will is about getting to choose who you put your faith in. I picked Dean. Not because I thought he would never fail me or I would never hurt him, but because I finally figured out that faith doesn't have to be absolute to be real."

Sam lifted his hand in a slow, measured movement that asked a question of Castiel. Castiel answered by looping the amulet's cord around his neck. It was not so great a burden as he remembered, this tiny thing on which he had hung so many hopes.

"Thank you," he said again and meant it.

The boy of demon blood, who understood so much more of godly things than the angels, shrugged and turned his face to the sun. "My dad thought I should put my faith in him just because of who he was. That's fine when you're a kid, because you don't really get the difference between faith and love. Love just happens. Faith you have to earn.

Maybe your Father thinks it's past time we grew up."

* * *

It was dusk when his brother joined him, that in between time between day and night when coyotes howl.

He took Castiel in hand, as Castiel had once held fast to the tarnished soul of a human man, and bore him to the sky. Flew with him to stars and cities, skipping like a stone across the whole of creation.

He gave to Castiel the world and the people who walked it

There was aching tenderness in Castiel for them, the brothers, mothers, and friends, so dear in their courage and their sins. Before he had loved them as an angel should, with the distance of one above. But now he wallowed alongside them in the stink and confusion of mortality, his confusion as great as theirs, his fate no more assured.

Now he loved with wrenching closeness, for he knew them all because he knew one among them. Every tear a child shed, every blow a man struck in anger, for Castiel had their echoes first in Dean.

He clung to Gabriel, taking what closeness he could in these final hours, and allowed himself to be bitter.

'_We could look for other ways, brother.' _

'_No. I'm ready, Gabriel. I do this for myself as much as anyone.' _

Another lie, but with enough truth behind to make the archangel let it pass unquestioned. It was selfish, to flee infirmity and pain, to leave behind so much because of the things that had been lost. Suicide was a sin to angels as well as men, and Castiel did not pretend he had not given in to despair.

But he did it too for Dean, and in that there was a glory to which any angel would aspire.

The sacrifice would not be his alone. So much would depend on Gabriel when Lucifer was back in his cage. Gabriel, who let Castiel use his wings for his own, who gave to him one last time the currents of the air.

'_What will you do, should Michael fight?' _he asked his brother.

He knew the risk was very real. If the gate could be closed, the gate could also again be opened. Castiel would make what changes he could to the seal to prevent it, but the angels had all of time to puzzle at the riddles he left to them.

'_I fight back,'_ Gabriel answered without hesitation, _'I cut him down and sing his name with yours.' _

Michael. First angel, brightest of them all, his faith that of a child's, wanting only to please the Father who had turned his back. And if Michael of them all was closest to God's vision of perfection, what did that say for their creator, that such blind obedience should be glorified?

'_Strike first, Gabriel. Strike first and strike hard. He cannot be swayed. He cannot change. Lucifer understands more than he.' _

He felt the archangel's surprise at the fierceness of Castiel's conviction. _'Brother…' _

But Castiel could see it so clearly now, the ways in which Michael had twisted them all to his own ends, hiding the truth of God's departure lest they make up their own minds as to its cause. _'He's taken God's place. Every angel should be allowed to decide for themselves on what side they fall.' _

'_You sound so cynical, Castiel. That's more my act.'_

But Castiel felt far from pessimistic. He felt simply full, choked full of the stuff of life. The world passed by beneath them, giving up crystallized flashes of humanity in its teeming masses. If only the other angels could see them as he did, not beautiful for lack of ugliness but in the ways they fought against it. They were made of dust, these children of Adam, and Castiel of stars, but they were one nonetheless.

'_Take me home,' _he said, _'Take me to Dean.'_

_

* * *

_

He found Dean in the panic room, standing at the altar of Castiel's lost wings. The banishing sigil had dried to flaking rust, its danger no longer in its use but in the things it represented for them both.

Castiel summoned forth his blade and frowned at Dean's smile. The human folded to his knees, hands folded in semblance of prayer, giving himself to vengeance.

Castiel drove the tip of the sword into his own palm instead of Dean's throat. Blood pooled and with it he remade the sigil, adding a new layer of markings outside the original. Banishing despair, fear, sorrow. Asking for peace and glad tidings on the morrow.

'_Your will be done,' _he prayed, _'For I know it is your will to save them, Father, no matter what else you wish for us.' _

He offered Dean his hand, marking him with blood as he pulled him to his feet. They stood at a distance of inches, face to face, breathing the same warm air.

Castiel's Grace swelled with feeling too deep for the weak words of man. He wished he could twine with his charge as he twined with his brother, who even now kept him in the circle of his Grace.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean's lips quirked into a smile.

"Hello, Castiel."

It was the last either of them spoke. There in the night Dean stripped away his coverings, laid himself bare before the angel in a sacrifice of a different kind.

Castiel took of the offering with reverence, painting sigils on Dean's back as he moved within him. Inscribing on his skin all the things he wished for the man with the sigils of lust and life and joy found in partings.

In this most physical of acts Castiel had never felt himself to be less of the flesh. He felt Dean shudder beneath him, but for Castiel there was only the climb. Sweat slicked the body he had claimed for his own, but there was no relief to be found, no end to the sweet torture. He spiraled ever higher, desperate for the fall.

Until Dean kissed him.

It was clumsy and hard, a clash of teeth that bruised his lips. And that was Dean, that need that never softened, that love that came with a cutting edge. Castiel felt something within himself break wide and poured himself Grace and body into his righteous man.

'_Yes,' _he sang.

'_Yes, yes. This.' _

_

* * *

_

The apocalypse ended at dawn. Castiel stood with the ones he had laid claim to. Sam, his teacher. Gabriel, his brother, his own.

Dean.

He smiled, and in the seconds before the blade came down felt the pendant at his throat begin to burn.


End file.
